sheep

Why circumscision for religious purposes? it is mentioned a lot in the bible but it was never made clear how it is being a good believer. why?
i've heard that it supposedly reduce sexual pleasure which is an evil. is that true?
also, female circumsiscion - i dont think the bible mentions this at all. so why are females circumsized? so they are faithful to their husbands? but then why is it said to be for religious purposes?

please keep this discussion away from sexuality.

sheep

who thought up that anyhow... i mean, to cut off part of... yah... that's painful. i guess im still having trouble understanding why.

Alethias

Supposedly god himself thought it up and told Abraham to do it as a sign of his covenant with god.

I figure it was likely a lot simpler than that. My guess is that Abraham didn't clean himself and got an infection on his wee-wee. He had a fever and was therefore delusional, and it was hurting him like the dickens. He had a knife handy and cut the foreskin off to deal with the infection and swelling and etc. Since he was delusional he decided it was a command of god for all his children into future generations.

Why do christians do this to their kids? Because they consider themselves the 'spiritual descendants of israel'. What does this have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing.

That's the long answer. The short answer is it doesn't make any sense but millions of people consider it important to practice circumcision anyway.

I can't speak about the religious reasons for female circumcision. I'm sure it has about as much logic behind it as male circumcision.

On second thought, it probably has much less logic behind it.

SoT

maybemaybenot

One day I asked my mom why she had me circumsized. She said cause the doctors told her it was the best thing, so I wouldn't have problems with infection when I get older. They told her if I didn't keep it clean under the foreskin I would get an infection. I personally think the are insane, and really uninformed around this issue. If I'm correct most of the male population of the world is uncircumsized (?). Here in the US, they just chop, chop away most of the time. I just feel that is you can teach a kid to wipe their ass then you can teach them to clean under theforeskin.

HereticChick

Circumcision has it's roots in old barbaric religious beliefs. Too bad people still hold to those same old ideals. "I want him to look like his father" "He'll be teased at school" "He might get an infection"....blah blah blah...

It's still not necessary, it's STILL barbaric, and it's finally on the decrease in the US. I believe even medicare won't pay for the procedure anymore. It'll be nice when all types of genital mutilation will be stopped. Not just male circ, but female also.

premjan

I wonder if circumcision has any long-term psychological effects.

David B

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=148021

As I recall this was the latst thread on the issue. A certain amount of controversy on it, but this was one of the threads in which some people actually changed their minds. For the better. I see circumcision, male or female, as barbaric myself

David B

Jehanne

http://aappolicy.aappublications.org...cs%3b103/3/686

Plognark

The whole foreskin infection thing is overblown as well.

Lugubert

After some hesitation, I bite.

When thinking of violence in this world, I primarily imagine the ME, Israel, and US actions. When thinking of living in peace, to the point of not bothering very much whether the front door is locked or not, that's where I live, in Sweden's second largest town.

In those cases, my impression of the respective levels of violence correlates beautifully with the occurrence of circumcisions. Male genital mutilation isn't prescribed anywhere in the Qur'an, but I get the impresion that most Muslim men are cut. The operation isn't illegal in Sweden, IMHO because some MP's were afraid if being accused of anti-Semitism if they were to pass the bill for outlawing it. There are, however, hospitals that refuse to perform this perfectly unnecessary removal of healthy tissue.